Who Was Stendahl the Food Writer?

The other day, at another used book store (this one in Atwater Village), I stumbled upon the cookbook you see above and what caught my attention wasn’t the picture or the title but the name of the author. Like Madonna or Cher, here was a food writer with a one word name. Are there any other food writers with one-word names? I can’t think of any. So I opened to the back flap to read more. Here’s what I found.

How come I’d never heard of him before? How come his name is never referenced in the same breath as Ruth Reichl, Calvin Trillin and all the other greats?

When I came home, I Googled him and it turned up nothing. I Googled “Dining With Stendahl,” same result.

I was ready to give up until I turned to Twitter and asked my followers for help. One follower, JosePiano, offered the answer: “Stendahl was the pen name for Arthur W. Bernal.”

Arthur W. Bernal. I Googled that and it brought me to his New York Times obituary: “Arthur W. Bernal, who under the name Stendahl was a food and restaurant critic for The Daily News and WNCN-FM radio, died Sunday morning at his home in Bayside, Queens. He was 78 years old.”

Turns out he was a filmmaker who, after traveling the world and growing his palate, chose the pen name “Stendahl” and reviewed restaurants both in The Daily News and on TV.